


Unkindled Wings

by Burdenedwithgloriousporpoise



Series: Marlowe Fics [4]
Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Drabble, Gen, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9835196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burdenedwithgloriousporpoise/pseuds/Burdenedwithgloriousporpoise
Summary: An image of death in the form of a flying boulder...an eerie glade of crooked tombstones.





	

Darkness.

Not sudden--a gradual realization.

Cold, too. Walls pressed against the sides of his arms.

He lifted his hands and they stopped against stone only a foot or so above his face. Stale air; wouldn't last long. He worked his feet level with the ceiling and strained against it. It budged, shifted, grated as it slid--he shoved off with a grunt and it toppled over with a heavy thud.

Sunlight blasted into his eyes and he winced, lifted a shielding hand. Ethereal clouds of dust fell from his arm. As the dazzling effect faded, he pulled himself to his knees.

Air stirred across his face. Leaves rustled overhead, and weak morning light filtered through overcast clouds. The small circular clearing around him rose into tiers of root-veiled cliffs filled with an army of crooked tombstones. Ahead, the path sloped down into a stretch of standing water overshadowed by ancient trees, gnarled branches poised overhead as if hands waiting to fall upon the way. A breath of mist lingered over top.

And this, that he knelt in...

His grip on the edge tightened. A box? A coffin...?

What...had happened?

_A freakishly long arm against a washed-out sky--roar of air over stone as the barrage tore towards them--_

Sweat slicked his face and his heart raced, breathing tight and face and knuckles white as he gripped the box's sides. Slowly his surroundings faded back into perception, and as the pounding of his pulse subsided it was replaced with utter silence.

Again, not a sudden silence, but a realization that the silence had been total.

He took a breath, exhaled and stepped over the short wall, leaned against it for support. Dust hissed softly as it fell from stiff clothes. He glanced down. Around his neck, a green cloak. A short tan jacket over a white button-down shirt, tucked into some sort of leather half-skirt (?) over white pants. Something was missing. For a moment an almost phantom sensation seemed to tingle over his legs, chest and back--a tightness as if they had been bound. On his chest was an emblem. He removed the cloak and jacket for inspection.

The back of the cloak held an emblem of two crossed wings, one white and one blue. The same emblem was on the jacket, one for each sleeve and one on the back. This was a familiar thing, important to him. He could feel it in his gut, a connection on almost a spiritual level. It symbolized something that he...needed? Was? Its nature taunted and skipped around the edges of investigation. Finally he exhaled and replaced the jacket and the cloak. If it was that important of a thing, he would remember eventually.

He stepped away from the coffin. Yes, it was definitely a coffin.

How had he come here?

A flash of pain and almost instinctively he touched the right side of his head. Why...? His hair was short there, just thicker than stubble while the left side was cropped above his ears. A ping of petty disappointment elicited a half-laugh. He may not know anything about himself right now, but if he had voluntarily acquired such an awful haircut things didn't bode well for his judgement.

Half-memories stirred--or rather the premonition of such--and he sighed. Time to move on. As he traveled, answers must come. He set off on the sloping path.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing my tradition of "I did this thing while obsessing over that thing and they combined" fics, this one was born as I began a grueling journey into the Dark Souls 'verse. Totally playing as a character modeled after Hitch with an alternate backstory which I might post later, but wrote this one as a standalone for Marlowe :3


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